Thatched House

Innocence

One of the many books that I want to have is ‘The Art of Reading Scripture’ by Richard B. Hays and Ellen F. Davis. The book is too costly and it is not published in India. But I’m glad to have an MP3 lecture by Hays on the book and here’s a summary (or dictation:-)) of the main points in the MP3 with a few personal inputs. To read and interpret the Bible faithfully is important because: i. It is not possible to read Scripture without interpreting it. Consciously or unconsciously, we are always interpreting the Bible as we read. It is important that we learn to do it and do it well because our interpretation tends to be influenced by our social and cultural baggage, educational background, denomination we belong to, etc. ii. The nature of the Scripture itself: that it is both human and divine. The error is more towards treating the Bible as a book fallen from the sky, unpolluted by human hands, thoughts or language. He made a list of inadequate approaches in reading/interpreting Scrip...

Evolution and Theology operates at different levels: The first talks about our chronological origin while the later about our ontological origin. The two talks of different things and cannot be contested. Therefore creation vs. evolution is a non-debate. But yes, Evolution and YEC is the issue in contention. To take the Bible as a science textbook believing in its inerrancy runs into problems within the text itself, e.g. genealogical precision (Genesis 11:12 cf. Luke 3:35). Nature of science is such that a theory’s in place until refuted by another which better explains the phenomenon under study. No better theory has come up to refute evolution than the criticism of its loopholes. The above point doesn’t mean the acceptance of evolution in spite of its weakness just for want of a better theory. The ever growing evidence and the landslide consensus among scientists testify to it being a theory and not a hypothesis. The proportion of Bible scholars vouching for a literal interpr...

Here's bits from a guest lecture by prof. Meera Nanda that I attended in our centre. She talked of the 'Sate-Temple-Corporate complex' that she drew from her new book 'The God Market'. I haven't read it yet, so how do I know? Well, she was reading out from the book. Here's how the nexus works. Anybody (profit/non profit) can set up educational institutions and get approved by the UGC. Therefore there is this mad rush for universities to get the 'deemed' status. Once you get the recognition, you can hire and fire at will, give your own degrees, fix your own fee structure, and no reservation is necessary. Other than the UGC, the State can also say to a university, 'we recognise you'. Once the university gets recognised, the corporate sector jumps in knowing that now, it is profitable for investment. The religious institutions benefit from this nexus and the business has grown. The use of public money (as all deemed universities get from the...